Which kind of money are you trying to make?
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
There are really only three ways to reach a million in sales.
One: sell a product priced at 10,000, a hundred times.
Two: sell a product priced at 1,000, a thousand times.
Three: sell a product priced at 100, ten thousand times.
Sounds simple.
But where many brands really get stuck isn't the maths. It's the positioning.
A few days ago I was talking with a brand, and I noticed a very common belief these days:
The product has to be good, the price has to be low, and it has to be great value.
Nothing wrong with that.
Customers obviously like good things, and obviously like low prices. The problem is that from the brand's side, it isn't that simple.
Selling expensive and selling cheap are two different roads
If you want to sell expensive, you have to make customers believe you are worth the price.
You need a sense of brand, a story, trust, content and marketing awareness.
Because an expensive product isn't just selling function.
It's selling perception and trust, the feeling in the customer's mind that:
this is worth it.
If you want to sell cheap, that's a different road.
You have to go for the mass market.
Low price means limited margin. Limited margin means you can't load the product with features, and you can't pile up packaging and costs.
What you need is standardisation, efficiency, supply chain, inventory turnover, and a large volume of sales.
Cheap doesn't mean carelessly cheap.
Behind cheap there is actually a capability.
It tests whether you can make the product just right.
Not the best. Just good enough.
Just enough to meet the customer's core need.
Just enough to make her feel it's worth it.
Just enough to make her order right away.
The worst place to be is stuck in the middle
Many brands' problem is wanting the benefits of both sides at once.
They want to sell cheap, but with a premium feel.
They want the mass market, but they want to put every feature in.
They want customers to feel it's a bargain, but they also want enough margin left for branding, KOLs and ads.
In the end, they get an awkward product.
The price isn't low enough, and the brand isn't strong enough.
The product looks fine, but customers feel no urge to buy.
It has lots of features, but not one of them really hits the market.
So the most important question in product positioning isn't:
Is my product good?
It's:
Which kind of money am I actually trying to make?
High-ticket money comes from brand, trust, expertise and long-term education.
Mid-ticket money comes from product strength, use cases, content and repeat purchases.
Low-ticket money comes from efficiency, hit products, supply chain and traffic density.
You can't carry high-ticket product expectations at a low-ticket price.
And you can't fight for the mass market with a high-ticket cost structure.
Truly good positioning means knowing what you won't do.
If I want the mass market, I have to accept that the product doesn't need to be too complicated.
It needs to be consistent, good-looking, easy to sell and easy to buy again.
If I want to build a premium brand, I have to accept that early sales won't come so fast.
Because I need time to build perception, build trust, and build a reason for customers to pay more.
The worst place to be is stuck in the middle.
Wanting to be cheap, but not cheap enough.
Wanting to be premium, but without a premium feel.
Wanting to build a brand, but without the budget to get the word out.
Wanting volume, but without an efficient supply chain.
In the end, customers look at it and think:
Nice, but no need to buy it now.
Set the price band first, then design the product
A product isn't what you want to sell.
A product is what customers are willing to pay for within a certain price band.
Once the price band is set, the product has to be designed to fit it.
Not the other way round, designing the product first and then forcing a price onto it.
Very often, what we lack isn't a good product.
What we lack is clarity on who the product serves, what it sells for, what makes people buy, and what structure makes it profitable.
That is what's really hard about product positioning.